Tempest (film)
Encyclopedia
Tempest is a feature
silent film
directed by Sam Taylor
. V. I. Nemirovich-Dantchenko
wrote the screenplay
and William Cameron Menzies
won an Academy Award for Best Art Direction
for his work in the film in 1929, the first year of the awards ceremony. John Barrymore
and Camilla Horn
star in the film, with Louis Wolheim
co-starring.
. His life is made increasingly difficult by the aristocrat
s and officers around him who are resentful of his progress. He then finds himself rejected by a princess he falls in love with and, having been caught in her room, is put in prison. There he is stripped of his rank but soon after the Russian Civil War
starts and as a result of the Red Terror
the tables are turned.
Feature film
In the film industry, a feature film is a film production made for initial distribution in theaters and being the main attraction of the screening, rather than a short film screened before it; a full length movie...
silent film
Silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...
directed by Sam Taylor
Sam Taylor (director)
Sam Taylor was a film director, screenwriter, and producer, most active in silent film era. Taylor is best known for his comedic directorial work with Harold Lloyd and Mary Pickford....
. V. I. Nemirovich-Dantchenko
Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko
Vladimir Ivanovich Nemirovich-Danchenko was a Georgian-born Russian theatre director, writer, pedagogue, playwright, producer and theatre organizer, who founded the Moscow Art Theatre with his colleague, Konstantin Stanislavsky, in 1898.-Biography:Vladimir Ivanovich Nemirovich-Danchenko was born...
wrote the screenplay
Screenplay
A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...
and William Cameron Menzies
William Cameron Menzies
William Cameron Menzies was an Academy Award-winning American film production designer and art director who also worked as a director, producer, and screenwriter during a career spanning five decades...
won an Academy Award for Best Art Direction
Academy Award for Best Art Direction
The Academy Awards are the oldest awards ceremony for achievements in motion pictures. The Academy Award for Best Art Direction recognizes achievement in art direction on a film. The films below are listed with their production year, so the Oscar 2000 for best art direction went to a film from 1999...
for his work in the film in 1929, the first year of the awards ceremony. John Barrymore
John Barrymore
John Sidney Blyth , better known as John Barrymore, was an acclaimed American actor. He first gained fame as a handsome stage actor in light comedy, then high drama and culminating in groundbreaking portrayals in Shakespearean plays Hamlet and Richard III...
and Camilla Horn
Camilla Horn
Camilla Horn was a former German dancer and a film star of the silent and sound era. She starred in several Hollywood films of the late 1920s and in a few British and Italian productions.-Biography:...
star in the film, with Louis Wolheim
Louis Wolheim
Louis Wolheim was an American character actor.His trademark broken nose was the result of an injury sustained while playing football for Cornell University. Despite his rugged visage, Wolheim was intelligent and cultivated, speaking French, German, Spanish, and Yiddish. He was also a mathematics...
co-starring.
Synopsis
The film is set during final days of Czarist Russia and revolves around a peasant who rises through the ranks of the Russian army ending up a LieutenantLieutenant
A lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer in many nations' armed forces. Typically, the rank of lieutenant in naval usage, while still a junior officer rank, is senior to the army rank...
. His life is made increasingly difficult by the aristocrat
Aristocracy (class)
The aristocracy are people considered to be in the highest social class in a society which has or once had a political system of Aristocracy. Aristocrats possess hereditary titles granted by a monarch, which once granted them feudal or legal privileges, or deriving, as in Ancient Greece and India,...
s and officers around him who are resentful of his progress. He then finds himself rejected by a princess he falls in love with and, having been caught in her room, is put in prison. There he is stripped of his rank but soon after the Russian Civil War
Russian Civil War
The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviets, under the domination of the Bolshevik party. Soviet forces first assumed power in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a...
starts and as a result of the Red Terror
Red Terror
The Red Terror in Soviet Russia was the campaign of mass arrests and executions conducted by the Bolshevik government. In Soviet historiography, the Red Terror is described as having been officially announced on September 2, 1918 by Yakov Sverdlov and ended about October 1918...
the tables are turned.
Cast
- John BarrymoreJohn BarrymoreJohn Sidney Blyth , better known as John Barrymore, was an acclaimed American actor. He first gained fame as a handsome stage actor in light comedy, then high drama and culminating in groundbreaking portrayals in Shakespearean plays Hamlet and Richard III...
- Sgt. Ivan Markov - Camilla HornCamilla HornCamilla Horn was a former German dancer and a film star of the silent and sound era. She starred in several Hollywood films of the late 1920s and in a few British and Italian productions.-Biography:...
- Princess Tamara - Louis WolheimLouis WolheimLouis Wolheim was an American character actor.His trademark broken nose was the result of an injury sustained while playing football for Cornell University. Despite his rugged visage, Wolheim was intelligent and cultivated, speaking French, German, Spanish, and Yiddish. He was also a mathematics...
- Sgt. Bulba - Boris de Fast - Peddler / Commissar
- George FawcettGeorge FawcettGeorge Fawcett was an American stage and film actor of the silent era. On stage he appeared in such plays as Ghosts with the controversial Mary Shaw, The Squaw Man with William Faversham, The Great John Ganton with an up-and-coming actress Laurette Taylor in the cast and Getting A Polish with...
- General - Ullrich Haupt - Captain
- Michael VisaroffMichael VisaroffMichael Visaroff was a Russian-born film actor. He appeared in 113 films between 1925 and 1952. He was best known for his uncredited appearance in an early scene of Dracula as the nervous Hungarian innkeeper who, as Renfield is traveling to meet the Count, warns him about the actual existence of...
- Guard